


Let Glass Collide with Glass

by whipstitch



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-10
Updated: 2012-04-10
Packaged: 2017-11-03 09:36:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whipstitch/pseuds/whipstitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: Six Times Johanna Mason Exceeded Her Alcohol Tolerance, and One Time She Didn't</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Glass Collide with Glass

****

I

Her first solo attempt at making homebrew produces a growler of what looks like beer but tastes more like malty piss.

“It’s not _that_ bad,” her uncle says politely.

“Pff, bullshit,” Johanna snorts. Dae giggles. Her aunt gives her a pointed look, and Johanna shakes a finger at her tiny cousin. “You didn’t hear that.”

“It’s not bad for a first try, I mean,” Oak clarifies. “Mallory’s got contaminated her first time. It turned out tasting like shoes.”

“A hard lesson, that one.” Mallory takes his glass and tries a sip of the beer. “I think you just got hasty, really. Another two weeks and it probably would’ve been fine.”

Johanna makes herself chug the rest of her glass and pours herself another. “That won’t do me much good if I get sent off to the Capitol tomorrow.” She has nineteen slips in the reaping this year, and there aren’t many girls in the two years above her.

“We could have everyone chip in and send it as a sponsor gift,” Oak jokes.

Johanna laughs. “Now that’d bring some allies. ‘Join up with District 7, kick back, and die happier.’”

Dae pulls urgently on Johanna’s arm. “You’re not going to die, though! Right?”

“Of course not.” She drinks again, cringing. “Hopefully. I dunno, kid. I might’ve brewed poison here.”

“You don’t have to drink all of it, you know,” Mallory points out.

“Throwing it out is such a waste.”

“Throwing it _up_ isn’t any better.”

“If I end up hungover in the Capitol, I’ll aim for Flickerman’s shoes.” Johanna checks the clock. It’s 10:00 PM and she has half a growler left to go. There’s plenty of time left before she has to start freaking out.

 

****

II

Her first night back home, she drinks herself to a blackout.

“Did I do anything?” she asks the next morning.

Mallory doesn’t meet her eyes as she pours her a glass of water. “You talked a lot.”

Johanna vows not to drink in front of them after that.

 

****

III

She isn’t sure what makes the third time different. She drinks, hoping it’ll go easier that way, that maybe she won’t feel it till she sees the bruises on her thighs in the morning, but she forgets what alcohol does to her judgment. The _no_ inside her head comes out through her mouth. When that’s not enough, it comes out through her fist. One to his balls, one to his jaw, and Assignment #3 is on the floor with four fewer teeth than he came in with.

For about thirty seconds, it’s the best she’s felt since last year. Then the Peacekeepers break through the door.

As they cuff her wrists behind her back, she remembers about Haymitch Abernathy.

 

****

IV

They all look like accidents: a loose saw blade, a log fallen from a truck, a rotted belay line. But they all happened the same day, and everyone in Seven is smart enough to put two and two together. When Johanna comes home, they lock their doors and cross the street to give her as wide a berth as they can. Only the Peacekeepers meet her eyes.

Her family is already in the ground. When she asks the coroner why, he stammers something about the heat and decomposition rates. Maybe it’s true, but that doesn’t change the fact that now there’s nothing she can do for them anymore to make up for it. She leaves him with two broken fingers. If everyone’s going to be scared of her, she may as well give them a reason.

The three fresh graves are towards the edge of the clearing, not far from where her mother is buried. The wildflower patches are picked clean, so Johanna makes do with pine boughs and some late clumps of juneberry. Then she sits and waits for the tears to come.

There’s no one there to bother her.

It’s past dark by the time she makes herself return to the house. She heads straight for the cellar, not bothering to rinse the dirt from her hands. Mallory’s older batches of homebrew will go sour soon. Someone has to drink it.

 

****

V

They can make her go to the post-parade party, but they can’t make her care. She heads straight to the bar with lowered eyes and gritted teeth. The two tributes from Seven are hopeless. She won’t compete with One and Four for sponsors this year, and it’s hard to get good liquor at home anymore.

She’s six drinks deep when the bar’s Avox gives her a shot of something clear and acrid. He points across the bar to Haymitch Abernathy. Haymitch raises a matching glass.

“Welcome to freedom, sweetheart.”

“Fuck off,” she tells him, but they take the shots together.

 

****

VI

Finnick Odair is one of the biggest lightweights she’s ever met, but he sobers up just as fast. It’s unfair and unnatural, and she tells him so.

“You were a million times worse than me an hour ago,” she mumbles into her knees. “What happened?”

“It’s a magical power only redheads have,” he says, his voice somewhere above her. “And look, I can stand up now. That means I win.”

“Do not. That wasn’t the contest. The contest was that I could drink twice as much as you and still be less drunk. And that was an hour ago, when you were giving names to all the pillows. I win.”

“Not if you can’t leave the couch!” The cushion shifts as he plops back down next to her. 

“Who cares if I can’t?” Her head flops against his shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s good. Turnus and Sparkles would be so sad.” He puts an arm around her and leans his head on hers. “I ordered some drunk food.”

“By which you mean cake.”

“No! Well. Not _just_ cake.”

“You’re getting it then, Mr. Ooo Look I Can Stand Upright. The door’s too far away.” He’s warm. She wishes his free nights weren’t so hard to come by.

 

****

VII

She’s been training since the day they announced the Quell. Her trick from last time won’t work, but at least she’s going in prepared.

Then they watch the other reapings on the train, and guess who’s up from District 4?

She goes straight for the whisky, not because everything’s changed, but because _nothing_ has. They’ll be allies, of course. He’ll want Mags with him, and that’ll slow them, but they still have a good chance at being the last two standing if they get their weapons. Which they will; the Capitol wants to see its stars at their best. 

And then Johanna will kill him. Because though Finnick’s stronger and has more to live for, he’s the nicer one. Nice means he’ll hesitate, if only for a second, and that’s all she needs to put a hatchet in his ribs. She’ll hate herself for it, hates herself already for thinking it, because _bloody fuck, Johanna, who else do you have?_ It won’t be enough to cancel out survival. The instinct is too deeply ingrained.

If she’s lucky, someone else will get him first. Maybe Katniss Everdeen; then Johanna won’t need to regret killing off the closest thing the districts have to hope.

Before she can swallow a drop, Blight yanks the bottle out of her hand. She grabs for it. “Get your own, jackass.”

“You’ll want to be sober for this,” he says quietly. “Seems there’s a plan.”

“What kind?” She’s not in the mood to talk tactics right now.

He sets the whisky on the shelf behind him. “A kind where maybe this time, the Capitol loses.”


End file.
